Ghislaine Maxwell appears via video link during her arraignment hearing where she was denied bail for her role aiding Jeffrey Epstein to recruit and eventually abuse of minor girls, in Manhattan Federal Court, in New York, July 14, 2020 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted Wednesday for helping late sex criminal and financier Jeffrey Epstein abuse underage girls.
Maxwell, who turned 60 years old on Christmas Day, faced six criminal counts at her trial. Jurors deliberated for five days before finding her guilty of five of the six counts. She faces the likelihood of years in prison.
She did not appear to have any reaction as the judge read the jury’s verdict.
Maxwell faces a second trial on perjury charges for allegedly lying under oath in a lawsuit filed by an accuser of Epstein.
The British socialite was arrested in New Hampshire in July 2020, a year after Epstein himself was arrested on child sex trafficking charges.
She is the first person charged in connection with Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse of underage girls other than him.
The accusers in the case were teenagers when they were allegedly abused by Epstein at his properties in the United States and London.
Most of the conduct that formed the basis of the charges occurred in the 1990s.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefitting Wall Street Rising, with a Performance by Rod Stewart at Cipriani Wall Street on March 15, 2005 in New York City.
Joe Schildhorn | Patrick McMullan | Getty Images
“The road to justice has been far too long. But, today, justice has been done. I want to commend the bravery of the girls – now grown women – who stepped out of the shadows and into the courtroom,” wrote U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in a statement following the verdict.
“Their courage and willingness to face their abuser made this case, and today’s result, possible,” he added.
Maxwell, who has been held in jail without bail since her arrest, declined to testify in her own defense, telling Judge Alison Nathan, “The government has not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt and so there’s no reason for me to testify.”
Jury deliberations began late in the day on Dec. 20, after a prosecutor and Maxwell’s lawyer gave closing arguments, and after the judge instructed jurors on the law to be applied in the case.
“She manipulated her victims and groomed them,” assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe told jurors in her closing argument.
“She caused deep and lasting harm to young girls. It is time to hold her accountable,” Moe said.
Epstein died at age 66 in August 2019 while awaiting trial in a federal jail in Manhattan. Authorities ruled it was a suicide by hanging.
Maxwell and Epstein for years had socialized with well-known and wealthy people, including former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Prince Andrew of Britain.
Epstein kept a much lower public profile after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to state criminal charges in Florida, which included one related to paying an underage girl for sexual services.
He served 13 months in jail for that case but spent much of that time on work release.
In 2020, an internal Justice Department investigation found that a top federal prosecutor “exercised poor judgment” in cutting a deal with Epstein in 2007 to get him to plead guilty in the state case to avoid facing federal criminal charges related to his sexual misconduct. But the report also concluded that federal prosecutors had not broken the law or engaged in professional misconduct in the deal.
The report by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility also found that the former top federal prosecutor in Miami, Alexander Acosta, closed the federal investigation into Epstein at that time “before significant investigative steps were completed.”
Acosta resigned as Trump’s first Labor secretary in 2019 on the heels of Epstein’s arrest on federal child sex trafficking charges after outrage over the prior no-prosecution deal he cut with Epstein.
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